Wednesday, May 23, 2007

So long, Veronica

I already detailed my thoughts about Veronica Marsa few weeks ago, professing to be not all that upset with the likely prospect of the show's cancellation. And when it wasn't on the CW's announced fall schedule, it didn't much surprise or bother me. But I admit that I felt a little sad sitting down to watch last night's two-part finale and realizing that those two episodes were the last new Veronica Mars installments that I'd ever see. It helped, too, that the show went out very strongly: The mysteries of Weevil's framing for making fake IDs and the distribution of the Veronica/Piz sex video were interesting and clever, and, most importantly, they felt like they mattered to the main characters, which was something missing from the earlier stand-alone episodes.

The final episode was particularly good: It may not have been intended as a series finale, but it had satisfying callbacks to earlier continuity, and it was nice to get references (at least visually) back to Duncan and Lilly Kane. What was saddest was watching the set-up for the next season that will never be, with Keith under investigation and likely to lose the election, back on the outs with the Neptune community; Veronica and Piz trying a long-distance relationship even as she clearly still has some feelings for Logan; even Dick starting to show some depth and actual human feeling. As Veronica walked away from the camera and the screen faded to black, it did sort of set in that that was it. Even after all the ups and downs of the past two seasons, this was still a unique and wonderful show, and I really will miss it. I'm happy to read that creator Rob Thomas is already working on new projects, and I look forward to whatever he's got coming up next.